Our ChessBase Magazine subscribers recently received a particularly interesting offer: a theme tournament with Spyridos Kapnisis! “Play the Author” lets readers play against their favourite author in a round-robin tournament. Another attraction is the set opening that is played in each round. In this “Play the Author” episode, the Richter-Rauzer Variation in the Sicilian was […]
Monthly Archives: June 2021
The second leg of the 2021 Grand Chess Tour is taking place on June 18-22 at the Mobilier National in Paris. The event consists of two sections: a three-day single round robin with a rapid time control (25’+10”), followed by a two-day double round robin with a blitz time control (5’+2”). The action kicks off […]
In this year’s Prague Chess Festival things do not go well for David Navara. In round 4 of the Masters he played against Nijat Abasov (pictured) and suffered his fourth loss in a row. Navara had an excellent position but first gave his advantage away and then lost on time. The other three games of […]
The 2021 Superbet Chess Classic concluded on June 14 and Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (pictured) won with 6.0/9 (3 wins, 6 draws). FM Joshua Doknjas analyzes four games from the second half of the event, all of which contain interesting opening ideas. | Photo: Lennart Ootes (Archive)
A 20-game match between Garry Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand was organized in 1995 by the Professional Chess Association. The match was played on the 107th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York. After eight draws, Anand took the lead in game 9, but a string of five subpar performances […]
After three rounds Sam Shankland is the sole leader in the Masters tournament at the Prague Chess Festival. With 2.5/3 he is half a point ahead of Nijat Abasov and Radoslaw Wojtaszek, but in round 4 Shankland plays with Black against Wojtaszek and has to defend his lead. The round starts at 15:00 CEST (9:00 […]
Chess is not all about competitiveness, and Gibraltar has become a place that embodies the multi-faceted character of the royal game. Following this vein, FIDE recorded a series of well-produced videos with the participants of the Women’s Grand Prix that came to an end a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy getting to know a bit […]
Computer cheating in online chess is a real plague. Now an Indian billionaire and two Bollywood celebrities have even cheated when they had the chance to play against Vishy Anand at the online charity simul “Checkmate Covid”, an event to help the Indian Red Cross’ COVID-19 relief.
How many different games of chess are possible? Everyone knows it’s a very, very large number. It can be written down in seconds, using just a few digits, is unimaginably huge. Unimaginable? The great scientist Enrico Fermi recommended that we at least try to understand very large numbers, to estimate what they entail. Mathematics professor […]
Unlike other sports, chess allows for players to agree to a draw, be it explicitly or implicitly — for example, by entering a forced line that leads to a threefold repetition. Many workarounds have been proposed to prevent this from happening too often, but at the end of the day, it mostly has to do […]